"We'll meet at 14:30 here in Red Square to exchange information." I said to Ellen as she was about to slip in the front entrance of the Moscow Armoury to view the crown jewels. "Shall I call you Maxwell Smart or do you wish that I use your code name 86?" she replied in play-along.With a smile and a wink I pretended to pull up the collar on my trenchcoat. I adjusted the brim of my invisible fedora, threw the gal a kiss, then walked straight towards the side en...

The Leningrad blockade saw around one million deaths through shelling, starvation and disease at the hands of the Germans during World War II. The seige lasted almost three years and is often referred to as "The 900 days". To draw a comparison, the United Kingdom and USA suffered combined losses of around 700,000 in the entire Second World War.Ellen had been hounding me to death when we arrived St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) about concealing the fact that we...